A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

2 The farmers’ movement
THE COMMON GOOD OF HUMANITY,
GOOD LIVING AND THE PEASANT MOVEMENTS
IVO POLETTO 128
Introduction
My intention in this brief reflection is to clarify the relations and contributions
of peasants’ and indigenous peoples’ practice and life proposals,
so as to advance in the understanding and the quest for ways to guarantee
not only the common goods of mankind to every person, but also
to construct a paradigm that will make it possible to reach that common
good, which is to say, “life and its reproduction.”
In order to write about the organization of existential practice and the proposal
for the organization of human coexistence which are present in the
concept of Good Living and in peasants’ practices and cultures, it is essential
to exercise self-criticism. Placing the challenge in first person singular:
would I be capable of understanding the richness of those ex periences
and proposals without the filter of the prejudices (family, religious
and political) through which my ancestors have denied mankind itself, as
in the case of indigenous peoples, and citizenship, as in the case of the
peasants 129 who generously present these alternatives to mankind?
This is not a rhetorical question or one posed under false humility. What
we want to highlight is the collective subject – each indigenous people
and the group formed by all of them – that manages, after having sur-
128 A philosopher and social scientist. An expert on Educação Popular. In recent
years he has been an advisor to the Forum on Climate Change and Social Justice.
He was the first national executive secretary of the Comissão Pastoral da Terra, and
advisor to Brazilian Caritas and to Pastorais Sociais da CNBB. He was part of the
Program Fome Zero and he is the author of the book Brasil – oportunidades perdidas.
Meus dois anos no governo Lula. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Garamond, 2005.
129 Martins, José de Souza (1981). Os camponeses e a política no Brasil, Ed. Vozes,
Petrópolis, RJ, Brasil.
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